Strain measurement for the semiconductor industry with nm-scale resolution by dark field electron holography and nanobeam electron diffraction

Abstract

Strain is routinely used in state-of-the-art semiconductor devices in order to improve their electrical performance. Here we present experimental strain measurements obtained by two different Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) based techniques. Dark field electron holography and nanobeam electron diffraction (NBED) have been applied to a range of semiconductor devices including recessed SiGe source and drain devices and SiGe pFETs on SOL Here we demonstrate how the spatial resolution and sensitivity of these two techniques has been improved by using a state-of-the-art, probe corrected Titan TEM, and have benchmarked the capabilities of the two different techniques and highlight which method is most appropriate for different types of semiconductor specimens.